


Neither an Ocelot Nor a Raccoon Be

by Basingstoke



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-13
Updated: 2005-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:44:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Which tree are they in? The one with the bear under it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neither an Ocelot Nor a Raccoon Be

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to Pares for the beta and a thousand curses to Shalott for her evil powers making me write so relentlessly. You can take from me my fingertips, but you cannot take my FREEDOM!

"I'm sorry, Major, where are you again?" Ford asked.

"In a tree," John said.

"Yes, sir, but any tree in particular?"

"The one with the bear under it," John said, looking down at the bear. The foliage was thick, dense, and shifting in the wind, but he could hear it pacing around the trunk of the tree.

"Lion!" Rodney insisted.

"Lions can climb," John said. "If this thing could climb, we'd be dead."

"No, bears can climb, lions can't."

"Lions are _cats_," John pointed out.

"Excuse me? Who lived in bear country? Whose grandfather was a Mountie? Who has an heirloom bearskin rug in storage? Me."

"My pop shot a cougar once," John offered, smirking.

Rodney rolled his eyes in disgust and started in with "not even REMOTELY the same--"

"It is likely neither a lion nor a bear," Teyla broke in, the extreme mildness in her voice meaning that she was about to laugh or shoot them. Rodney shut his mouth with a snap of teeth.

Ford made a muffled noise that was definitely _not_ him laughing at his commanding officer. "Why can't you shoot it, sir?"

"Because I dropped my P90 trying to get McKay up this tree."

"Excuse me for not doing well my _first time_," Rodney muttered.

"And the leaves are too dense for me to get a decent aim with my nine mil. I shot it in the ear and it just got huffy."

"That's not good," Ford said.

John heard a swish of foliage and the lion reared up through the soft fronds, its brown-stained paws resting on the trunk some six feet below them, its long, pink nose twitching and flaring at their scent. John reached out without looking away from the lion and clutched his hand in Rodney's sleeve.

"I know it can't reach us," Rodney said.

"Well, maybe I wanted someone to hold _my_ hand."

"Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah," John said, "it's just looking at us."

It stretched one paw a little further up the trunk and patted a branch softly, then vanished back down to the ground.

"I'd say that's about three and a half meters long," Rodney said, tightening his grip on the trunk.

"I was looking at the claws."

"Oh, so was I. Yes, I certainly was."

"Sir--do you have any idea what direction you ran in? Because I sure don't."

"Um..." John squinted up at the twin suns that had been foxing their attempts at navigation all day. "No."

Rodney snorted. "Don't be idiots, just use the homing device."

"We have homing devices?" Ford and John asked at once.

"What? Of course you have homing devices," Rodney snapped. "If you would pay _attention_ for once, you take the little pen-shaped thing that I make you keep in your pocket and it will point to the signal from our radio units."

"Really? Cool!"

"I don't remember you telling us about that," John said.

"I did so."

"Did not."

"I also do not recall this," Teyla said.

"Well, why wouldn't I tell you about that?" Rodney asked. John raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "I'm sure I told you," Rodney insisted.

"Okay, on our way, Major! Ford out!"

"We'll be here. Hanging out. In the tree." John settled his shoulders against the trunk, stretching out his legs and crossing them casually at the ankle. The branches were relatively thin, but they seemed to take their weight well enough.

Beside him, Rodney was straddling his branch and clinging desperately to the trunk just above John's head. "Seriously, did you take classes in this, or did you just have your fear surgically removed as a child?" Rodney snarled.

John shrugged. "I like to save it up for bad first dates and visits with my father."

"Oh, I'm sure your dating traumas are legendary. Ooh, there was that one time that woman didn't put out!"

The foliage rustled above their heads; John looked up, but it was just a bird. "There was the time that woman pepper sprayed me at the end of the night," he said.

"Wait. What? Seriously?"

"Uh-huh. She started talking crap about the army and I disagreed with her and I guess things got a little heated and she decided I was attacking her. So she zapped me. It sucked."

Rodney gave him an incredulous look, swayed, and clutched the tree trunk again. "Okay, I've had some bad dates, but none of them ever committed aggravated assault against me. That's truly impressive."

"I have depths," John said.

"Didn't she know you were military?"

"I thought she did. I was wearing my tags. I look like a pilot." John put on his sunglasses and grinned.

"Actually, you look like the captain of my high school chess club in those things." Rodney blinked. "Uncannily so. Did you ever own a cheap black trench coat?"

"Uh..." The answer was yes, but he wasn't sure he wanted to admit it.

"Oh my God. You were into Rush, weren't you?"

"Well." Yes again.

"You hung out in the computer lab during lunch playing Oregon Trail."

John sighed. Yes, he did.

"But did you ever get your ass kicked by a football player for playing D&amp;D?" Rodney asked, the tilt of his eyebrows indicating that this was his trump card.

"Yes."

"Really?" Rodney's voice squeaked on the last vowel.

"No." He was a scrapper in high school and the bullies learned to leave him alone.

Rodney shook his head and scoffed, shoving away from the trunk. "See, I knew you weren't a real--" He paused as a sharp cracking sound cut through the air. John placed his hand on the trunk, trying to figure out which one of them that was. "Geek," Rodney finished, his voice suffused with dread. "Major, did you--"

And then he was slipping, he was falling as the branch peeled away from the trunk of the tree, but John was close, close enough to flip himself and wedge his knees under another branch so that when he grabbed Rodney's arms, they didn't both go overboard. And then Rodney was dangling, terror naked on his face, his legs windmilling beneath him. "Major! MAJOR!"

"I have you! I've got you!" He'd racked himself so bad that he was surprised he wasn't soprano, but his hands were locked in Rodney's and neither of them was going anywhere. "McKay! I need you to trust that I have you and stop moving for a second."

Rodney nodded, panting open-mouthed, his eyes huge, but his legs stopped moving and his body stopped swinging and John could see the full situation. The broken branch was swaying below him, not heavy enough to break through the lower foliage. The not-a-lion reached up and swatted it away casually.

"I have you. Don't look down, keep looking at me, and you need to reach out with your foot, because a branch is right there in front of you," John said.

"Major, I'm checking in," Ford said. Bad timing. John didn't answer; Rodney was staring up at him, unwavering, feeling for the branch.

"It's there. You can step right up and meet me," John said as the not-a-bear reached up and brushed a claw across the bottom of Rodney's dangling boot.

"Oh my GOD," Rodney said, and he found the lower branch and bounced off it and the tree trunk and into John's arms like Fred Astaire dancing up the wall. They clung together and stared down at the muddy yellow eyes of the not-a-cougar.

"Oh my God, I nearly died in a hideous, painful, and humiliatingly Neanderthal way," Rodney said, hyperventilating, his heart hammering against John's forearm.

"Major! McKay!" Ford shouted. "Are you okay?"

He couldn't reach his own radio with Rodney in his arms, so he hit the talk button on Rodney's shoulder and spoke into Rodney's headset. "We're okay, Ford," John said, his chin brushing Rodney's cheek. "A little drama, but no harm done."

"Okay. You had me worried there. We have your direction and we're on the way."

"The sooner the better," John said. "Sheppard out."

"Yes, sir. Ford out."

John turned off the link and let out his breath. "All right, this might be the adrenaline," Rodney muttered, and he turned and kissed John hard on the mouth.

A little startling. Not as startling as pepper spray, though.

"I think it's definitely the adrenaline, because you're too skinny and have weird ears," Rodney said, and kissed him again.

"I do not have weird ears."

"They're pointy," Rodney said, "you look like Mr. Spock," and kissed him a third time, with tongue, and John shifted back, bring a knee up to give his boys some space because he hurt like _hell_ and he didn't want to give himself a fetish. Because kissing Rodney was all right. Just fine.

Below them, the not-a-giant-panda splintered the fallen branch between its teeth. "Well, you look like Uhura with that thing in your ear all the time," John said, sliding his hands down Rodney's back and grabbing his ass, which was something he'd been dying to do for months now. It was just--inviting.

Rodney made a gratifying noise in his throat. "I've never had sex in a tree before."

"The others are going to be here any minute." John squeezed his ass again, because it felt exactly as good as he thought it would, round and not too hard.

"Oh, God, you had better stop that then. Seriously," Rodney moaned, thrusting forward into John's lap.

"I..." John licked his lips, tasting bark, and leaned forward, lifting Rodney off his legs, because ow and because he had an idea. He stood, crouched over carefully, hooking his left hand into Rodney's belt and keeping the trunk between them. Rodney planted his feet on two branches, looking very nervous. "Hey!" John shouted at the not-a-tiger. He pulled the hand radio from Rodney's vest with his right hand and dropped it to the ground.

The not-a-Creodont stepped up the tree again. John drew his gun and shot it in the eyes. It bellowed and dropped back down and John fired the rest of his clip in its general direction.

"I should probably have done that earlier," John said.

"It's possible that I didn't tell you about the homing beacon," Rodney said.

"I feel that we've grown as people on this mission," John said, holstering his empty gun and resisting the urge to run his thumb across Rodney's lower lip.

Ford and Teyla announced themselves with weapon fire and the animal howled. "Sir?" Ford called. "We got it. What tree are you in?"

"This one!" Rodney shouted.

"Um. Which one?" There was a rustle and John saw the butt of his P90 poking up through the lower fronds.

"Yeah, this would be the tree," John said.

"Dr. McKay, the homing beacon rules!"

"Of course it does," Rodney said. He hugged the trunk and dropped his forehead onto John's shoulder. "How do we get down?" he asked, his voice muffled in John's sleeve.

John looked down. "Well."

"Oh, no."

"I was always better at climbing _up_, honestly," John said.

"Major, it's safe!" Teyla called.

"If I had a rope, we could rappel," John said.

"If I had a jet pack, we could fly." Rodney punched John in the chest.

"Ow." And for that, John pinched Rodney's ass, and Rodney jumped, and one of the branches broke. They just didn't make trees sturdy in the Pegasus galaxy.

* * *

"Ow," John said.

"Oh, don't be a baby, it's just a wee splinter," Carson said. He pulled a sliver of wood four inches long out of John's abdomen.

"Look, anything that involves a scalpel--"

"Also involves anesthetic, and anyway, it's only under your skin. You don't even need stitches," Carson said.

"Scalpel that close to my business is what I was going to say," John muttered, resettling the sheet. Carson laughed heartlessly and moved on to the next splinter.

Carson eventually shooed him out with an Ace bandage, a big bottle of ibuprofen and a week off duty. He was bruised and scraped up over most of his body and he'd wrenched his knee pretty good, but nothing serious; he just wasn't going to be able to move for a couple of days.

"How are you feeling, Lieutenant?" he asked Ford, leaning on the end of his gurney.

"Like a scientist fell on me, sir." He grinned. He had a spectacular black eye, probably from Rodney's boot, but Beckett said no concussion, so that was all right.

"I support you in your scientist-catching endeavors, but I think your technique needs work."

"I think I need to use lighter scientists. I could toss you around," he said, winking at the nurse. She giggled. John rolled his eyes and checked on Teyla.

She was a little worse off. The jagged end of a branch had caught her in the face and arm, leaving her scarily bloodied. "Teyla?" John asked.

"I am well," she said. There were butterfly bandages on the bridge of her nose, the center of her forehead, and one cheek, but no stitches in her face. Stitches down her arm, though, that the nurse was carefully taping gauze over. "There was more blood than damage."

"Her face won't even scar," the nurse said.

"Good, good."

"I will also work on my scientist-catching technique," Teyla said solemnly. "I plan to ask Dr. Grodin if he would be willing to jump on me from increasing heights."

John raised his eyebrows. Teyla raised hers. "Well, good luck with that," John said.

That left Rodney. John hesitated... but really, he had to know, had to ask, and tomorrow he wouldn't even be able to stand up.

Rodney had a private room--a private court at the moment, since he was conducting a meeting. "Oh yes! That's an excellent idea. And once they scrape your liquefied remains off the ceiling, I'll make sure to say that over your 750mL coffin." Rodney huffed through his nose and rubbed his eyes with his good hand. He had on a neck brace and an architecturally elegant cast on his left arm. "Get out of here. I need my rest. Zelenka, make sure the city doesn't beach itself."

John held the door open as Rodney's emotionally traumatized subordinates filed past. "You've got a real way with people," John said.

"Shut up. No, wait. Thank you for not letting me get eaten by a bear."

"Least I could do," John said, leaning against the wall. "Carson got you on the good drugs? All he gave me was Advil."

"Not at the moment. I needed to understand math for the meeting." Rodney sifted through the pile of paper beside him on the bed, then glanced up at John. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not challenging your position as resident stoic and man's man. I just want to die exotically even less than I want to be in pain."

"So was it adrenaline?" John asked.

Rodney's eyes widened and he was silent for a pretty long moment, for him. "Yes," he said.

John touched the door. "Lock," he said, not looking away from Rodney. Rodney's breath quickened and kept quickening as John strolled closer, until he was nearly hyperventilating as John leaned over the bed and kissed him.

"Luckily," John said, his lips against Rodney's stubbled cheek, "it's pretty easy to freak you out."

"Oh, God. I can't do anything right now, my arm is _killing_ me, but I really--you can kiss me again, I mean, I would like you to--"

John kissed him again.

"I think I can rustle up some wine and roses by the time you get out of the hospital," John said.

"Actually, 85% dark chocolate and minty lube are more likely to make me a sure thing--" and he broke off, and John's eyebrows shot up his forehead, and they both flushed.

"Okay," John said, and if he was weaving as he walked to the door, he told himself it was because of his wrenched knee.

"Oh my God," Rodney groaned behind him as John tried to figure out who would probably have lube.

THE END.

 

All comments are welcome.


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